


like an after-kiss

by onetiredboy



Series: Jay's Gender Fics (Read Disclaimer) [2]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Body Image, Drabble, Other, Short & Sweet, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, i made myself so soft with this i almost cried, im just so gay and they just [clenches fist] love each other so much, soft makeouts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-17
Updated: 2019-11-17
Packaged: 2021-02-07 16:06:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21460762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onetiredboy/pseuds/onetiredboy
Summary: Peter blinks again, this time to try and clear his vision, and he sits up on the bed, “Do you think I think you look untidy?” he asks.Juno shrugs one shoulder noncommittally, his gaze flittering around the room, “You put a lot of effort into looking nice. And—I never used to care. About how I looked, but now that we’re together and I’m working on caring about myself more, I… I don’t want you to be embarrassed. By me.”
Relationships: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Series: Jay's Gender Fics (Read Disclaimer) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1782826
Comments: 22
Kudos: 400





	like an after-kiss

**Author's Note:**

> **EDIT: I am discontinuing this series. Please follow the link to the series this is from and read the disclaimer there. Thank you!**
> 
> my body aches  
like an after-kiss
> 
> breaking in soft fires  
and wildflowers
> 
> my dear,  
i will always be  
this tender for you  
\-- a thousand flamingos
> 
> to explain why this fic exists through a message i sent on discord: "i know the juniverse is a utopia where nobody cares what anybody else looks like but i also just WANT juno to be assured that he's very handsome and very feminine and very beautiful just how he is and he doesnt need to change anything so im doing it to him myself through peter lmfao"

Peter is lying on his boyfriend’s chest. It is a lazy afternoon aboard the Carte Blanche in the wake of their latest heist, Jet is piloting them somewhere through the stars to their next location, and Peter is letting himself rest. He lies, feeling the calming tide of Juno’s breaths in and out underneath him, the warmth of his chest and the warmth of his arms thrown loosely around his back, feeling the calming tide of sleepiness start to roll over him in its gentle waves, when Juno says it.

“Do you think I should shave?”

Peter blinks and lifts his head lazily. It comes to his attention that there’s a crick in his wrist from where it’s pinned at an awkward angle under Juno’s back and he moves it. His glasses are long folded on the side of the bed and his vision is just slightly foggy around the edges, “Beg pardon?”

Juno looks at him for a moment and then sighs grumpily, leaning his head back, “I don’t know,” he mutters. “I don’t want to look… untidy. Not when you always look so nice all the time.”

Peter blinks again, this time to try and clear his vision, and he sits up on the bed, “Do you think I think you look untidy?” he asks.

Juno shrugs one shoulder noncommittally, his gaze flittering around the room, “You put a lot of effort into looking nice. And—I never used to care. About how I looked, but now that we’re together and I’m working on caring about myself more, I… I don’t want you to be embarrassed. By me.”

Peter can’t respond for a moment. He’s processing everything Juno has just said, feels it shake him all the way through. When he can finally make sense of it all he laughs, softly, and leans down to kiss Juno’s cheek.

“My dear,” he says softly. “I could never be embarrassed by you. I’m worried that I embarrass _you_ sometimes.”

“What?” Juno shifts to look at him, frowning, “How?”

Peter shrugs, allowing himself an awkward half-smile, “Well. You’re so brave and good with messy situations. Apart from blood, but that’s another matter. Sometimes I feel it must be a little embarrassing having such a fussy boyfriend in comparison. I’ll never forget the way you looked at me that time I broke down over a stupid broken nail. It was like you thought I’d explode if you touched me too fast.”

Juno laughs. His laugh is just like the rest of him: messy and uncertain. It is loud in places and dips into quiet suddenly as though he catches himself in the act of sharing too much and tries to pack it all back away. It’s scratchy and it has nothing to hide from the world. It’s a laugh so unlike Peter’s own: one he refined and tailored so long ago he isn’t quite sure he’d know how to laugh genuinely now, and Peter has always admired and envied that freedom that Juno carved for himself in the year they were apart; that shamelessness that Peter has never been able to have. It is, as all of Juno Steel is to Peter Nureyev, the most beautiful thing in the solar system.

“I figured there must’ve been something else going on, I’d never seen someone act like that over a broken nail,” Juno grins up at him. Then the grin fades and he reaches a hand up to brush some greying hair behind Peter’s ear. “No, Peter,” he mutters. “You don’t embarrass me. You’re perfect.”

“And you,” Peter says, ducking his head down to press a kiss to Juno’s temple, “Juno Steel, don’t ever embarrass me.” He kisses the scar on his nose, “You are messy,” he admits, and kisses under Juno’s missing eye, “And unshaven. And scruffy,” he kisses Juno’s cheek, “And feminine. And beautiful,” he presses a kiss to Juno’s mouth, “And the love of my life. And whether or not you shave has absolutely no bearing on that.”

Juno makes a soft, breathy laugh then, like he can’t quite believe what he’s hearing, and Peter smiles at him. He knows that feeling: of looking at someone and seeing the love they have for you and not quite being able to believe someone could ever have looked at you and felt that.

“And anyway,” Peter adds, “I only shave because I look quite awful otherwise. I couldn’t grow a full beard for the life of me.”

“Neither can I,” Juno points out.

“Yes, but it looks good on you anyway. Roguishly handsome. I was attracted to it from the moment I saw you. Attracted and, truth be told, very jealous.”

“What? Of me?”

Peter nods. Juno laughs. He leans up and pulls Peter down into a soft kiss. They kiss for a while; chaste, long kisses that have Peter sighing softly and Juno smiling up at him in the few moments between.

“There is also that,” Peter tells him when they finally stop, when he rolls off Juno to lie beside him, searching wordlessly for his hand to hold.

“What?” Juno’s fingers tangle into his and he squeezes tightly.

“I’d never get in the way of what you want. And if you do want to shave, I’m not going to stop you.” Peter rolls his head to the side and looks at Juno, “But I do love the way your stubble feels when you kiss me.”

Juno’s face splits into a wide grin, “Really?”

“Really,” Peter affirms, and Juno rolls over to kiss his cheek.

“Maybe I’ll keep it then,” he mutters, and tucks himself under Peter’s arm. He kisses Peter’s shoulder through his shirt and hugs him close. When he speaks again, his voice is barely above a whisper, “Thank you.”

And Peter makes a mental note never to let an opportunity to let Juno know how pretty he really is slide away from him again. He presses a kiss into the tangle of curls on the top of his head and hugs him tight, “Any time, my love.”

“I love you,” Juno mutters, and sometimes the words still catch in the back of his mouth and are difficult for him to say, but in this moment they flow out of him easily, as natural as breathing, and Peter’s heart swells.

“I love you, too,” he says, and if Juno hears the way the words catch in the back of his mouth because of the tears forming in his eyes, he doesn’t say anything.


End file.
